The present invention relates in part to improvements on the invention disclosed and claimed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,136,773, to Darcy L. Booth, issued on Jan. 30, 1979.
There has existed existed a need for a securing arrangement or mechanism for the releasible securement of components by securing mechanisms involving only members or elements integral with or on the components to be secured, without requiring separate fasteners, components or any steps or procedures other than simple manipulation. It is desirable that such securing mechanisms be readily and economically manufactured, and that they be economically fabricated integrally with the components to be secured. Desirably, such a securing mechanism can be quickly and conveniently manually adjusted to provide selected relative positions of the components.
Such securing mechanisms have been particularly needed for containers of pluralities of small articles, such as crayons and the like.
Although the particular embodiment of the securing mechanism of the invention herein illustrated and described relates to such a container for crayons and the like, it will be understood that the invention has applications with various components for providing a securing or latching mechanism which may be manually operable to releasibly secure the components together.
Containers of the prior art for containing such articles have been characterized by various shortcomings such that they do not satisfactorily meet adequately the requirements for use for such articles as the crayons used by artists, children and other users. Prior art containers have ordinarily been cardboard or plastic boxes or cartons in which the crayons or like articles are sold and provided, with the exception of the apparatus of the above-mentioned U.S. Pat. No. 4,136,773. Such containers fail to protect crayons from breakage and mutual abrasion and smudging.
For use by artists or children, a considerable number of individual crayons are utilized, and should or must be available because of the need for a variety of colors and hues. Devices and containers of the prior art have not generally or only rarely provided any convenient and ready accessibility of respective crayons of respective colors. Generally, it is necessary for the artist, child, etc. to manually sort at random through a disorganized collection of crayons for a selected color, with significant inconvenience, time consumption and frustration.
It is therefore a purpose and object of the invention to provide a securing mechanism for the detachable securement of two components in selected relative positions, quickly and conveniently by quick, simple manual manipulation.
An object of the invention is to provide such a securing mechanism for the detachable securement of a holder tray for small articles in a selected position in a container or box, so that articles of varying lengths may be accommodated.
It is an object of the invention to provide such a securing mechanism, the members of which may be integrally formed with the components to be secured.
An object of the invention is the provision of such a securing mechanism which is adapted for economical fabrication by injection molding.
An object of the invention is the provision of a container for small articles, such as crayons, wherein the articles are stored in an organized manner in respective storage positions for ready accessibility and selection.